This opera film is based on Jan Schmidt-Garre‘s highly acclaimed stage production of Beethoven‘s Fidelio. The producers carefully filmed and edited several performances. By using additional footage of Jacquelyn Wagner as Leonore the stage production…

The French Baroque opera Hippolyte et Aricie carries its audience away into a realm of wonders with magnificent dance and choir scenes and the greatest possible multitude of musical forms. Philippe Rameau, a French contemporary of Bach and Handel,…

A founding text of German operatic Romanticism and an absolute masterpiece of musical theatre, Der Freischütz by Carl Maria von Weber has not been performed at La Scala since 1998, when it was conducted by Donald Runnicles, but it is worthwhile…

For the Easter Festival 2017 in Baden-Baden, Sir Simon Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker draw their inspiration from Tosca, the most well-known and also most brilliant of all the Puccini operas. And that is deservedly so, since Tosca is not…

Arrigo Boito's only finished and preserved opera, Mefistofele, recorded in Baden-Baden was praised by critics and loved by the audience - a very rare concurrence. And this could hardly have come as a surprise, since it was no other than Erwin Schrott…

Das Liebesverbot is one of Wagner‘s earliest operas - and yet, a central motive of many other works such as Tristan and Isolde is already clearly visible: The overpowering force of love and lust, that no law - manmade or otherwise - can tame. In this…

The „Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno" plot couldn’t be simpler: Time and Disillusion try to convince Beauty to abandon Pleasure for less fleeting gratifications. Krzysztof Warlikowski has taken Handel’s first oratorio, written when he was just…

An awarded and original production of Janacek’s opera. Filmed in the baroque decor of Les Bouffes du Nord in Paris, with a reduced piano version, incredibly talented young singers, this is an enchanted version, acclaimed both by press and public.

On 12 September, Gianni Schicchi opened the LA Opera’s 2015/2016 season, which marks its 30th anniversary. The production by director Woody Allen first saw the light of day in LA in 2008, travelled to Teatro Real in Madrid and now returns home,…

A rococo beauty who ultimately drags everything into the abyss, Puccini’s Manon Lescaut is never fully satisfied. She becomes addicted to the admiring glances she receives from others, and the luxury and diamonds in which she bathes don’t warm her…